While chairs with ganging equipment are well known, ganging equipment typically has been of the hook and loop variety in which a hook on one chair engages a loop on the other to link them together. So that the chairs can be identical, each chair has a hook on one side and a loop on the other. If the hook opens downward, adjacent chairs can only be separated by raising the chair to which the hook is attached. If the hook opens upward, the two can only be separated by raising the chair to which the loop is attached. In either case one chair must be lifted away from the other, and not vice versa, to separate adjacent chairs. Since each chair has a loop one one side and a hook on the other, a chair in the middle of a ganged row of chairs cannot be removed. Rather, the chairs must be ganged or unganged in sequence.
Prior ganging devices in which the hook and loop linkage has been avoided, so that a central chair could be removed from a series of ganged chairs, have not prevented accidental disengagement of the chairs when one of the chairs is tilted or the floor supporting the chairs is uneven.